Waterborn (The Emerald Series Book 1) by Kimberly James

Author:Kimberly James [James, Kimberly]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Published: 2013-08-28T22:00:00+00:00

Eighteen

Noah

Caris’s eyes bore a hole in the side of my head as she sat next to me, waiting for some kind of explanation. I didn’t have one, not a rational one. Jamie wouldn’t want me blaming Marshall, but I couldn’t help it. It was easier that way, easier than blaming myself.

The sun had decided to come out in full force and burned right through the clouds, leaving a bright blue sky overhead. I usually welcomed the fuming heat, but it felt too stifling today. Sweat poured down my back, my shirt sticky against the seat. I made a hasty turn, prompting the car behind me to lay on the horn. A dude yelled something crude at me out the window that got lost under the canopy of trees. I had pulled onto an old service road to the state park. No one used it much anymore as it was totally obscured by a thick growth of scrub oaks and palmetto bushes. The wire that had held up the “no trespassing” sign was snapped off at one end, long buried under sand and leaves. Really it was more of a path with tire ruts faded into tired grass and dead leaves. My tires skidded to a stop on what was left of the gravel. I flung my door open, poised to jump out and run.

“You all right?” Caris ventured, turning half toward me.

I didn’t like the way she had looked at me all during lunch, like I was some hero for showing her how to breathe when she probably could have figured it out on her own. She would figure all this out on her own. She didn’t need me. I didn’t want her to need me. Did I? And I sure as hell didn’t want to think I needed her. Seeing Marshall always did this to me. Jumbled things up. Took the sense out of things that had made sense before.

“I gotta go.” I took off down the path and cut through the sand, eager to feel the water, let it wash away the sweat and the stink of guilt. It followed me everywhere in one form or another. Erin’s smiling but sad eyes. My mom’s attempts to make me into someone like my brother, someone I could never be. Jeb’s continual sympathy. Marshall and his “Noah, son.” He’d never called me son before. I wasn’t his son. We weren’t even family anymore. That link was gone. Everywhere I looked and everyone I saw acted as reminders of the thing I couldn’t yet admit to myself. I refused to admit it now.

The water acted as my oasis. A place to forget. A place of uninhibited movement where I could let go of my mind and just be. I surged through the Deep, wondering how far I had to go so I wouldn’t hear her anymore. Wondering if this was all my fault. If maybe some unacknowledged part of me had wanted to come home that day. Why else would I

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